Not as Much as Wanting
by lovablegeek
Summary: They're both familiar with obsession. WalterFreddie, written in reverse chronological order. - One shot


Walter sat calmly on the end of the bed, watching as Freddie paced around the hotel room. He didn't technically have to be here. His job with this whole chess thing was done, now that the negotiations with the Soviets were completed and Anatoly was on a plane on his way back to Moscow. But he figured he probably ought to be here now, if only so that Freddie didn't kill himself or someone else. He knew as well as anyone that Freddie was prone to stupid decisions when he was upset.

As he watched, Freddie slammed his fist into the wall, growled and turned around to pace in the other direction, shaking his hand out a little.

Walter rolled his eyes. "That's nice and dramatic, Freddie, but you keep it up and you're going to break your hand. It's not as fun as you'd think. They're little bones, and they don't heal easy."

Freddie whirled on his heel to glower at Walter, still shaking out his hand a little. Walter glanced briefly to the wall to see a small dent in it. The idiot really hadn't held back, had he?

"You know, you can just shut up. I'll kill you."

Walter raised an eyebrow coolly until Freddie looked away. They both knew very well who would win, if it came down to a real fight between them. Walter was, after all, a CIA agent. Freddie was a chess player. It wasn't hard to do the math. When Freddie turned away again, Walter sighed, eyes still following him in his restless back and forth across the room.

"You didn't really expect Florence to come back just because you won, did you?"

"It worked for the Russian!"

"You think she ran off with Anatoly because he won in Merano?" Freddie's insanity may have gone a bit further than Walter originally thought.

"What else could it be?"

There were so many things Walter could say to him. That Florence leaving had nothing to do with Anatoly, and everything to do with Freddie being a selfish ass. That no one except Freddie rated a person's worth on whether or not they won a chess game. Instead, he stood up and held out his hand. "Come here, let me see your hand."

Freddie hesitated a moment, and then with a sigh held out his hand. Walter took it gently, prodding at the delicate bones of his hand and watching Freddie's face as he grimaced, but there was no crying out in pain, so it was safe to assume he hadn't broken anything. Walter couldn't feel any broken bones. He glanced down to his hand again, turning it over slowly so it was palm up. "Freddie, forget about it. She's not coming back."

"I know," Freddie said softly, looking at his own hand rather than at Walter's face. He paused, and then leaned in to kiss Walter, hard. Walter let the hand fall. He knew it was, for Freddie, probably just a coping mechanism, he knew it wasn't exactly a healthy one, nor was this necessarily good for his own emotional state, but... He couldn't exactly say no. Not knowing it might be the last time he got to have Freddie's hands on him, his skin, his smell. Obsession was nothing new for either of them.

* * *

"Freddie."

He should have known he'd have to speak louder. Freddie was staring at a chess board - probably the game he'd played with Anatoly in Merano, though Walter didn't know it well enough to recognize it, even now. Somehow, he hadn't even noticed Walter entering the room, and Walter wasn't even _trying_ for stealth. He sighed and walked over to grab Freddie's shoulder and shake him lightly. Freddie looked up sharply, looking startled to see him there.

"You might want to pay attention to the world in general, Freddie," Walter suggested as he sat in the empty chair across the board from Freddie. "I promise you, it's important too."

"What do you want?"

Walter managed not to wince at the assumption that he had to _want_ something to be here. He did, of course, at this very moment, but he didn't _have_ to... "You're gonna win this."

Freddie snorted, turning his attention back to the board. He moved a white piece, and after a moment's thought, he moved one of the black as well. "I already knew that, Walter. I don't need you to bolster my confidence."

"What I mean is, you've got the support of your country behind you. Anatoly will lose. And he will return to Russia."

Freddie frowned, and looked up after a minute, curious. "How do you know?"

Walter smiled at him faintly, his best cocky government agent smirk. "I worked something out." For Freddie. For his benefit, even if Freddie would never realize it, because he never _did_, the blind idiot. He never saw the things people did for him, never saw how much they cared. "I'm certain it's going to work. You just have to do me one favor."

Freddie's eyes lit up a little, and Walter knew he _hadn't_ been certain of the win until now, just pretending he was. But here was the beginning of certainty. "What?"

"Talk to Florence."

* * *

Walter didn't know why, exactly, Freddie had called him and asked him to come to his hotel room. He hadn't even been off the plane for twelve hours for God's sake, from D.C. to Thailand by way of Germany, and Freddie insisted he come see him as soon as he got there. Selfish bastard.

To tell the truth, he was probably just lonely. Not like this had ever happened before, but then... Freddie had had Florence before. And Walter had spoken to him since Merano, but only over the phone - Freddie was the kind of person who needed people around, if only so that he could make their lives a living hell. But Walter came, as people always did when they cared about Freddie. He couldn't fathom, to be honest, how Florence had _stopped_ coming when he called.

He stepped off the elevator and headed down the hall to Freddie's room, more resigned than anything else. If he wanted to pitch a fit about Florence and Anatoly, or something the television studios were doing... Walter didn't have the energy to deal with it. He toyed with the idea of just knocking Freddie out. Sure, he'd be pissed when he woke up with a headache and a lump on his head, and it might make it difficult for him to play the game scheduled tomorrow, but if it got Walter out of a tantrum, it seemed almost worth it.

Walter knocked, and the door opened like Freddie had been waiting for him. No explanation, no "hello, Walter, how are you?", he simply opened the door, grabbed Walter less than gently by the arm, and pulled him inside. The door hadn't even closed before Freddie shoved Walter against the wall, his mouth on his as his hands slid up under his shirt.

Right, Walter reflected. This was another reason he tended to come when Freddie called.

* * *

Walter hovered in the doorway uncertainly, his eyes on Freddie. He'd sprawled on his back on the bed, and had been staring at the ceiling for perhaps the past couple hours. Alright, it was ridiculously childish, and made Freddie look like a petulant teenager (not far off the mark, all things considered), but that didn't mean Walter couldn't worry about him. He lost his title and Florence in one fell swoop. It was enough to put anyone in a mood.

"Freddie," he said softly after a moment, and got exactly no response, as he had expected.

With a sigh, Walter stepped inside, letting the door to the hotel room swing shut behind him for the moment. He walked to the side of the bed, though Freddie still continued to look fixedly at the ceiling. This would be so much easier if he could get Freddie to _look_ at him.

"Freddie, I'm going to the airport now. I've got a flight to London in an hour." To go with Florence and Anatoly, to help them out as much as he could, but he certainly couldn't tell Freddie that. He was leery of even saying their names around Freddie just now. It would be nice if he could get some sort of reaction out of Freddie, something to allow him to feel he wasn't betraying Freddie just by helping Florence. But of course, Freddie couldn't make it easy.

He waited a moment for a response.

"Are you going to be okay?"

And _now_ Freddie looked at him, with a disgusted glare that so clearly said, _What do you think?_ Walter sighed.

"Well. Call me if you need anything."

He hesitated a moment, leaned down to kiss Freddie gently, like that would somehow make it better, and turned to leave. He wanted Freddie to say _something_, anything at all, even just 'I'll see you,' but he knew already it wasn't coming.

* * *

Walter never would have expected Freddie to be _any_ sort of good at teaching. He was... well, Freddie. Stubborn, impatient, prone to outbursts that involved flinging things about when he didn't get his way. Somehow, it didn't seem like the best idea to ask him to teach _chess_, of all things, given that that was the thing Freddie got _most_ worked up about.

But he hadn't asked, Freddie had offered, doubtless as reconciliation for being an ass at one point or another. Walter didn't want to try to pick out which specific instance Freddie cared enough about to make up for, so just accepted it.

And, surprisingly, Freddie seemed to know what he was about when it came to teaching. Half of what he said went over Walter's head, but he understood enough to manage, and Freddie talked constantly as they played. Not just about the moves themselves, but about how to win. Focus. Obsession. Wanting it more than anything else in the world. That would certainly explain why Freddie won as often as he did - everyone _knew_ just how obsessive Freddie could get, about everything.

Freddie moved a rook forward with definitive certainty. "Check."

Walter frowned at the board, and then tipped over his king. He hadn't lasted long, but then, he hadn't expected to. Freddie smirked at him across the board and rose out of his chair. "Not bad. You know, for an amateur."

Walter studied him for a moment, that cocky smirk on his face - they'd both known he'd win, but Freddie treated _every_ win as something with which to prove his superiority. The smirk remained, even as Freddie raised an eyebrow to inquire after what Walter was looking at - and in a rush Walter rose out of his chair, gripped Freddie by the collar of his shirt, and kissed him. Startled though he was, Freddie kissed back.

If the way to win what you want was obsession, Walter already had that down. All that was left was the game. 


End file.
